The Equity Kicker - Latest Comments in Communities are enabled, not created

Re: Communities are enabled, not created

nic — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 16:47:57 -0000

Thanks for some great comments guys. Particularly Nnamdi - some great links.

Re: Communities are enabled, not created

James Penman — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 12:57:01 -0000

I'm stating the obvious but different communities have different characters and I think one has to manage the potential community with that in mind. For example, I'm particularly interested in communities that generate tourism information. I'm not too interested in travel or tourism as self-expression(eg a blog) or as a means of meeting new people. I'm looking for detailed information. To do this I think you have to provide the technology, the means to filter that information and a big chunk of content to get the community working. I'm also expecting to sustain the input in terms of content thereafter. In terms of what I'm trying to achieve, I certainly do not think that one should 'get out of the way'. In terms of an analogy, look to your kids and the community that springs up around that which you love.

Re: Communities are enabled, not created

Andy Warren — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 11:30:47 -0000

There's a Darwinian aspect to the way communitities develop with an ultimate "survival of the fittest" being determined by the community itself. In the same way that nature can produce a mutation that may benefit or hinder an entity and lead to it's evolution or demise , the community can mutate in the same way. It just tends to happen on a much faster scale.

If a community is hijacked and turned into a platform for gossip and scandal it will only survive if that's what the community members want from it. Equally, if the community is driven towards more serious topics but they don't engage or interest the community majority then it is likely to diminish.

Communities these days are about common interest rather than physical proximity and to that extent the newspapers have always been a focal point with the common interests of Sun readers differing significantly from that of Guardian readers. What the newspapers can provide is the steerage and direction to reinvigorate the community if it becomes stale. And provide a platform for new community branches to spring into life.

In business the same "common interest" will be what drives communities of IT specialists, VC commentators, entrepreneurs etc. And again what's needed is for the community contributors to provide stimulating and invigorating content to keep it alive and aligned with the common interest.

Re: Communities are enabled, not created

leafar — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 10:20:43 -0000

Lepost.fr is a very good example of this strategy for the newspaper lemonde.fr (which has a brand new layout since today).
Very interesting analysis.

Re: Communities are enabled, not created

Nnamdi — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 07:58:07 -0000

Nick, your views are echoed by Facebook's founder in that you cannot "create" community. His term for facebook is elegant organisation.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/m...

It also ties in nicely with Clayton Christensen's perspective that people hire tools to get jobs done.
http://www.dinarstandard.co...

One way to start could be to define the jobs, even in a broad sense (eg building social capital), and wrap a service around those goals. To get it right, it is worth thinging about how the community would define recognise and define social capital.

These might be of interest:

http://blog.mixergy.com/why...

http://www.slideshare.net/m...

Re: Communities are enabled, not created

Alx Klive — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 06:49:00 -0000

Communities can happen in two ways - spontaneously or through the (typically) very hard work of an individual or small team. The single most enabling factor for an online community, beyond the obvious need to provide basic community tools... is the written word. Often this can come from a charismatic 'leader' or moderator and be achieved through community e-mails, blog posts or descriptive site text. It can be as simple as a well written guide for the posters in a discussion forum, or as involved as a full on integrated campaign of newsletters, individual personalized e-mails, blog posts, site text and general community stewardship. These are tricky and difficult to get right, and all the glossy design in the world won't come close to matching a single, effective, written communicator.